Posts tagged “life”

If the body does not get enough zinc, it may have difficulty producing testosterone – a key hormone in initiating sexual desire in both men and women. Pecans provide nearly 10 percent of the recommended Daily Value for zinc.

It would take 11,624 pecans, stacked end to end, to reach the top of the Empire State Building in New York City.

Texas adopted the pecan tree as its state tree in 1919. In fact, Texas Governor James Hogg liked pecan trees so much that he asked if a pecan tree could be planted at his gravesite when he died.

Albany, Georgia, which boasts more than 600,000 pecan trees, is the pecan capital of the U.S. Albany hosts the annual National Pecan Festival, which includes a race, parade, pecan-cooking contest, the crowning of the National Pecan Queen and many other activities.

Pecan trees usually range in height from 70 to 100 feet, but some trees grow as tall as 150 feet or higher. Native pecan trees – those over 150 years old – have trunks more than three feet in diameter.

Today’s Food History

1756 John Loudon McAdam was born. He invented macadam pavement for roads. The Macadamia Nut was named for him.

1760 Olof Swartz was born. A Swedish botanist who collected plants in Jamaica and Hispaniola, and published several books on the plants of the Caribbean.

1937 J.R.R. Tolkein’s ‘The Hobbit’ was published. Hobbits were well known as both gourmets and gourmands.

1961 Earle Dickson died. He invented Band-Aids for his wife, who had frequent kitchen accidents, cutting or burning herself. He worked for Johnson & Johnson, who soon began manufacturing Band-Aids.

They are based on flour, potatoes or bread, and may include meat, fish, vegetables, or sweets.

They may be cooked by boiling, steaming, simmering, frying, or baking.

They may have a filling, or there may be other ingredients mixed into the dough.

Dumplings can also be sweet or spicy.

Today’s Food History

1630 Boston, Massachusetts was founded. Nickname, ‘Bean Town.’

1836 Antoine-Laurent de Jussieu died. A French botanist whose ideas formed the foundation of a natural plant classification system.

1900 Hotelier John Willard Marriott was born. Beginning with Hot Shoppe restaurants, then airline catering, and then motels, Marriott built his business into one of the largest, fastest growing, and most profitable hotel and restaurant businesses in the U.S.

It takes 9 seconds for a combine to harvest enough wheat to make about 70 loaves of bread.

Each American consumes, on average, 53 pounds of bread per year.

An average slice of packaged bread contains only 1 gram of fat and 75 to 80 calories.

One bushel of wheat will produce 73 one-pound loaves of bread.

Breaking bread is a universal sign of peace.

Today’s Food History

1380 Charles V of France Died.
* It was Charles V who commissioned Taillevent to write what would become the first professional cookery book written in France, ‘Le Viandier’.
* Forks were mentioned in an inventory during his reign
* Some believe that he died as a result of eating amanita mushrooms.

1630 Shawmut changed its name to Boston. If not for this, we might be eating Shawmut Baked Beans and Shawmut Cream Pie today!

1736 Daniel Gabriel Fahrenheit died. Fahrenheit was a German physicist who invented the Fahrenheit temperature scale thermometer. It was the first thermometer to use mercury instead of alcohol, which also extended the temperature range of thermometers.

1835 Charles Darwin arrived at the Galapagos islands aboard the HMS Beagle. The unique fauna he observed on the various islands there helped in forming his theory of natural selection.

1919 Marvin P. Middlemark was born. He invented the TV ‘rabbit ear’ antenna, and among other minor inventions, a water powered potato peeler.

The oldest fast food restaurant in the world is the White Castle franchise, which opened in 1921.

The people of America eat more burgers out at restaurants or on the go than they do at home.

The largest hamburger ever created was over 8,000 pounds and was cooked for a burger festival in Wisconsin.

However, the hamburger in its current form, with ground beef and a bun, is a decidedly American creation.

Hamburgers are made of beef, not ham, and there is much debate over whether they actually originated in Hamburg.

Today’s Food History

1885 Jumbo, an African elephant exhibited by in France, the London Zoo, and finally in the Barnum & Bailey Circus, died after being hit by a locomotive in Ontario, Canada. Jumbo was supposedly 12 feet tall at the time of his death.

1898 William S. Burroughs died. An American inventor, Burroughs invented and manufactured the first adding machine with a printer.

1962 The Four Seasons ‘Sherry’ hits number 1 on the charts.

1965Green Acres TV show debuted.

1971 Greenpeace founded.

1981 The USDA announced that ketchup could be counted as a vegetable in the school lunch program.

1995 Tan M&Ms are replaced by the new blue M&Ms. The tan ones originally replaced violet M&Ms in 1949.

Between our 27 locations, LaMar’s Donuts produces 344,700 donuts per week, which is 17.9 million donuts per year.

A Ray’s Original Glazed Donut has only 220 calories, while a bagel and cream cheese averages 450 calories.

Per capita, Canada has more donuts shops than any other country.

The Dutch are often credited with bringing donuts to the U.S. with their olykoeks, or oily cakes in the 1800s.

Today’s Food History

1752 Yesterday was September 2, 1752. No, really!

1849 Ivan Petrovich Pavlov was born. Pavlov’s work with dogs actually started as a study of digestion. He theorized that digestion was controlled in part by sensory inputs of sight, smell and taste – and as he discovered, sound; ‘conditioned reflex.’

1976‘Play That Funky Music’ by Wild Cherry is #1 on the charts

2006 The U.S. FDA reported an outbreak of E. coli 0157:H7. Fresh spinach is the suspected cause of the outbreak and consumers nationwide were advised not to eat bagged spinach. Eventually more than 200 people were sickened in 22 states and several deaths were reported.

There are enough peanuts in one acre to make 30,000 peanut butter sandwiches.

By law, any product labeled “peanut butter” in the United States must be at least 90 percent peanuts.

Peanut butter was first introduced to the USA in 1904 at the Universal Exposition in St. Louis by C.H. Sumner, who sold $705.11 of the “new treat” at his concession stand.

In 1884, Marcellus Gilmore Edson of Montreal, Quebec was the first person to patent peanut butter.

Today’s Food History

1592 Michel de Montaigne died. French essayist. There are a few of his quotes about food and dining listed on the Food Reference website.
(“A man should not so much respect what he eats, as with whom he eats.”)

1857 Milton Snaveley Hershey of chocolate fame was born.

1876 American author, Sherwood Anderson was born. In 1941 Anderson supposedly swallowed a toothpick or a swizzle stick while at a cocktail party in the Panama Canal Zone, and died of peritonitis.

1909‘The Chocolate Soldier,’ an operetta by Oscar Straus and Stanislaus Strange, opened in New York.

1916 Roald Dahl was born. British author, one of his most popular books was ‘Charlie and the Chocolate Factory,’ the film version was titled ‘Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory.’ Some of his other books are ‘A Piece of Cake,’ ‘Pig,’ ‘Royal Jelly,’ ‘Smell’ and ‘Lamb to the Slaughter.’

1922 The highest temperature ever recorded in the shade, 136.4 degrees F was recorded in a village 25 miles south of Tripoli, Libya.